posted 09-06-2014 01:29 PM
Anyone have any thoughts on our close encounter tomorrow?

A small asteroid, designated 2014 RC, will safely pass very close to Earth on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014. At the time of closest approach, based on current calculations to be about 2:18 p.m. EDT (11:18 a.m. PDT / 18:18 UTC), the asteroid will be roughly over New Zealand. From its reflected brightness, astronomers estimate that the asteroid is about 60 feet (20 meters) in size.

At the time of closest approach, 2014 RC will be approximately one-tenth the distance from the center of Earth to the moon, or about 25,000 miles (40,000 kilometers). The asteroid's apparent magnitude at that time will be about 11.5, rendering it unobservable to the unaided eye. However, amateur astronomers with small telescopes might glimpse the fast-moving appearance of this near-Earth asteroid.

Joel KatzowitzMember

Posts: 429From: Marietta GA USARegistered: Dec 1999

posted 09-06-2014 02:38 PM
Yep, I'll be strapping on my old football helmet, just in case...

All kidding aside, if this was an asteroid on a collision course with Earth how much early warning would we have?

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 30348From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 09-06-2014 04:04 PM
According to NASA, 2014 RC was initially discovered on Aug. 31 by the Catalina Sky Survey near Tucson, Arizona, and independently detected the next night by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope, located on the summit of Haleakalā on Maui, Hawaii.

GACspaceguyMember

Posts: 1628From: Guyton, GA Registered: Jan 2006

posted 09-06-2014 04:46 PM
Ok, not much warning then.

mach3valkyrieMember

Posts: 352From: Albany, Oregon USARegistered: Jul 2006

posted 09-06-2014 05:02 PM
Any idea of the damage that would result if an object this size hit earth?

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 30348From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 09-06-2014 05:13 PM
According to NASA, 2014 RC is about 60 feet (20 meters) in diameter. For comparison, the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia was about the same size.

posted 09-07-2014 12:20 AM
By happenstance, I needed and found a hard copy of an article I did in March 2013 on whether or not a major meteoroid would hit Earth. For more comparison's sake, 500,000 tons = 500 kiltons. The Hiroshima bomb was about 15 kilotons (widely accepted estimate), so figure the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor detonated with the equivalent impact of 33 Hiroshima bombs.

And in case anyone's wondering, the Tunguska meteoroid in 1908 which exploded in the atmosphere was about double the size - about 130 feet - and leveled 1,000 square miles of forest - the size of Washington, DC - and detonated with the energy of more than 500 Hiroshima bombs.

Lunar rock nutMember

Posts: 726From: Oklahoma city, Oklahoma U.S.A.Registered: Feb 2007

posted 09-07-2014 07:10 AM
Keep the tin foil handy after today, as there is a much larger threat looming out there with it's crosshairs locked on us.

If [Wolf-Rayet 104] collapses into a Supernova (as expected) and releases a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB), our Solar System could be in the direct path of a highly collimated jet of destruction and such an event could end life as we know it.

moorougeMember

Posts: 1816From: U.K.Registered: Jul 2009

posted 09-07-2014 10:59 AM
Didn't I read somewhere that a super-sized asteroid is due to hit us on 16th March 2888?

The consolation is that by then NASA might have sorted out its budget priorities and there will be outworld colonies we can evacuate to.

lspoozMember

Posts: 169From: Greensboro, NC USARegistered: Aug 2012

posted 09-07-2014 11:05 AM

quote:Originally posted by Lunar rock nut:Keep the tin foil handy after today, as there is a much larger threat looming out there with it's crosshairs locked on us.

Not that our current civilization could do anything about a GRB yet, but since this is 8000 LY away [outside the 6000 LY range], no worries...

Now watching whether Bennu hits the keyhole in a few years with a return impact in 2036, that'll be interesting!

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 30348From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 09-07-2014 12:14 PM

quote:Originally posted by moorouge:Didn't I read somewhere that a super-sized asteroid is due to hit us on 16th March 2888?

Astronomers investigated near-Earth asteroid 1950 DA, which is about four-fifths of a mile wide (1.3 kilometers). This asteroid currently has one of the greatest chances of colliding with Earth of any known asteroid, with about a 1 in 4,000 chance of impacting the Earth in the year 2880.

...unexpectedly, the scientists found 1950 DA is a porous rubble pile, about half of which is empty space.

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 30348From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 09-07-2014 11:37 PM
A "mysterious explosion" in Nicaragua's capital Managua, which left a large crater, is being attributed to Asteroid 2014 RC by local officials, AFP reports.

Nicaraguan authorities believe it was a piece of the small asteroid dubbed "2014 RC," which passed very close to Earth on Sunday and was estimated by astronomers to be about 20 meters big, or the size of a house.

"We are convinced that this was a meteorite. We have seen the crater from the impact," said Wilfredo Strauss of the Seismic Institute.

The meteorite appeared to have hurtled into a wooded area near the airport around midnight and the hit was so large that it registered on the instruments Strauss's organization uses to size up earthquakes.

"You can see two waves: first, a small seismic wave when the meteorite hit earth, and then another stronger one, which is the impact of the sound," he said.

Lou ChinalMember

Posts: 1053From: Staten Island, NYRegistered: Jun 2007

posted 09-08-2014 10:52 AM
I am amazed at the short notice of the August 31st discovery.

Hart, I also have heard of the 33 Hiroshima size blast. And I also have wondered about Tunguska.

quote:Originally posted by lspooz:Now watching whether Bennu hits the keyhole in a few years with a return impact in 2036, that'll be interesting!

As the asteroid impact near Cheylabinsk Russia on February 15, 2013 vividly reminded us, our planet is occasionally struck by asteroids capable of causing significant damage. This was the largest asteroid impact since June 30, 1908, when an asteroid flattened 1000 square miles of forest in Tunguska, Siberia.

More than a million of these Near Earth Asteroids are larger than the asteroid that struck Tunguska in 1908 with an energy more than 500 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. That asteroid was only about 40 meters across (about the size of a 3 story office building), yet destroyed an area roughly the size of metropolitan Washington DC.

Robert PearlmanEditor

Posts: 30348From: Houston, TXRegistered: Nov 1999

posted 09-08-2014 02:17 PM

...astronomer Humberto Saballos said the meteorite could have broken off from the 2014RC asteroid which passed Earth at the same time.

NASA scientists have now cast doubt on whether the blast outside Managua was even a meteorite at all, National Geographic reports.

In some news reports, geophysicist Wilfried Strauch of Nicaragua's Institute of Earth Studies attributed the crater to a meteorite impact.

However, NASA asteroid expert Don Yeomans, author of Near-Earth Objects: Finding Them Before They Find Us, says that outside experts suspect the crater wasn't caused by an impact.

"This event was separated by 13 hours from the close Earth approach of 2014 RC, so the explosion and the asteroid are unrelated," says Yeomans, because the Earth moves about 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) in 13 hours. "There was no obvious optical fireball or debris trail seen prior to the explosion, so it seems unlikely that the explosion in Nicaragua was related to a meteorite impact."

GlintMember

Posts: 823From: New Windsor, Maryland USARegistered: Jan 2004

posted 09-08-2014 04:32 PM
The photos of the crater left by the impact seemed pretty large. There's also some interesting ejecta patterns to one side. If it were a meteorite, that "splash" pattern could indicate a somewhat low angle of approach.